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Who will WIN the Enterprise Challenge?

We know that preparing young people for the future requires more than developing content knowledge. It requires the development of skills and dispositions to navigate an increasingly complex work , social and economic future.

The critical importance of social and emotional skills was highlighted in the recent research collaboration between Microsoft and McKinsey & Company http://aka.ms/classof2030signup and for young people be successful they must have opportunities to work together to solve problems, to innovate, to iterate, to test and challenge, to create and be creative. This is why I’m personally a fierce supporter of activities like the Global Enterprise Challenge.

The Global Enterprise Challenge (GEC) is an annual business enterprise initiative led by the remarkable Broadclyst Community Primary School (BCPS) in Devon under the stewardship of Mr Jonathon Bishop in the UK. Each year, students aged between 9 and 15 participate, in teams across more than 20 different countries.

The GEC was developed by BCPS in 2014, when it won a ‘pitch’ competition run by Microsoft within its Showcase School community across the world. It incorporates a wide range of business skills while encompassing many different elements of the school curriculum, putting the children’s learning into a real-life context powered by Microsoft Office 365 technology to allow worldwide collaboration and creativity.

This year we had 22 participant schools from all over the world from Israel to India and Jordan to Jamaica plus many other countries in-between! Out of the nearly 200 teams that participated we have managed to connect over 1200 students and teachers across the world.

The esteemed judging panel who are across time zones and continents, collaborate using OneNote to winnow down the shortlist before undertaking SHARK-TANK like Skype interviews.